The Lunacy of Attacking Iran

By Sherwin Pomerantz

Over the past ten days there has been a non-stop dialogue going on in the press about Israel’s consideration of plans to bomb the nuclear facilities of Iran.

Everyone knows the logic. Iran having a nuclear bomb capability would be a threat to the entire region, and given its President’s stated desire to see Israel wiped off the map, should they develop such a weapon we here will be the first recipient of its use.

No doubt, of course, that it would be a bad thing for the entire world if Iran were to successfully develop a nuclear weapon. We are not dealing here with the classic cold war case of the US and the Soviet Union where both parties knew well that neither ever wanted to use that capability, even though both possessed it. There was logic at play among two sworn enemies that prevented the Cuban missile crisis, for example, from escalating into nuclear war. In the case of Iran, whose diplomacy is driven somewhat by the religious fanaticism of Islamic fundamentalism, one cannot assume that diplomatic logic will hold sway.

Israel, of course, has the military capability of exercising a first strike on much of Iran’s nuclear production facilities and, according to informed sources here, that would delay (not eliminate) Iran’s development by four years. But would the risk be worth it? I think not. Iran would immediately respond to any attack with whatever firepower they had and, most likely, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza would join the fray. By some estimates there are upwards of 100,000 missiles aimed at Israel from these two locations as I write this.

But even if those numbers are exaggerated, the casualty count in Israel as a result of the response to such an attack will, I fear, be much more than our emergency services could handle and the country could very well slip into chaos. Do we really want to unleash such forces against us for a possible delay of four years in Iran’s nuclear development? Does that make any sense at all?

Perhaps the fear of an Iranian attack on Israel even if they have nuclear weapons is unrealistic in the first place. The Iranian leadership may be fervently religious but no one credits them for being either stupid or unrealistic. They know that an attack by Iran against Israel will unleash both Israel’s formidable military response as well as a response from the US which is pledged to defend Israel in the case of such an attack. Logic would dictate that even in the face of Islamist fundamentalism, the leadership of Iran will not choose to launch such an attack given the obvious and predictable circumstances that will follow.

This reasoning would lead any sane Israeli leader to the conclusion that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is not in the best interests of the future of Israel. Further, that the best defense against Iran is to make sure that our military machine has the capability to strike back, and strike back hard should they attack us. In the humble opinion of this writer any other strategy at this point in time would be nothing less than lunacy on the part of our government. The saber rattling should stop, and stop quickly as contemplating the fallout from such an attack on our part could potentially mean the end of the enterprise called Israel as we know it.